Rally for Homes (Steps on the North Side of the Legislative Building)
Hear from legislators about why your presence in Olympia is so vital.Sen. Cyrus Habib (D-Kirkland) Sen. Steve O’Ban (R-University Place)
Rep. June Robinson (D-Everett) Rep. Maureen Walsh (R-Walla Walla)

12:15-1:00pm

Lunches for Pre-registered Advocates (Steps on the North Side of the Legislative Building)

12:30-4:00pm

Meetings with Your Legislators (Check posted meetings schedule for times and locations as some meetings may be scheduled earlier than 12:30pm.)

1:00-4:00pm

Information Sharing Table (Legislative Building Columbia Room, 1st Floor)Stop by the Housing Alliance Information Sharing Table to report back about your meetings or to find out more about next steps.

1:00-3:00pm

Photo Booth Part II and StoryCorps Interactive Table - Provided by Firesteel (Legislative Building Columbia Room, 1st Floor). Hear StoryCorps stories of family homelessness and how the audio is being used for advocacy.

An Advocacy Day (a.k.a. “Lobby Day”) is an organized event, usually at the legislature, where constituents can meet their elected officials to inform on and advocate for specific legislation and policies. Each year, the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance organizes one of the largest Advocacy Days during the legislative session. This February, you have an opportunity to be a part of this very important day of action!

We’re looking for people passionate about ensuring that everyone in Washington has the opportunity to live in a safe, healthy, and affordable home. Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day is a chance for you to unite with others to end homelessness in our state. Are you ready to join over 500 other advocates from around Washington to tell your elected officials how you feel?

If you are ready to take fighting homelessness to the next level, then please join the Housing Alliance on Tuesday, February 17 in Olympia for the annual Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day!

Help make Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day 2015 a huge success. With over 600 advocates in attendance, it takes lots of volunteer energy to make Advocacy Day happen.

You can lend a hand in one of these roles during Advocacy Day:

Legislative District Leads – coordinate their district group’s meetings with legislators.

Advocacy Stewards – fill a range of roles for a two- to three-hour shift, which include staffing registration and resource tables, orienting event and program locations, and handing out red scarves and programs or lunches.

We provide training and support in advance of Advocacy Day for all roles.

Interested? Please be sure to check the box indicating your interest in volunteering at the registration page. A Housing Alliance staff member will be in touch soon.

For individuals seeking greener and more economical transportation to Olympia for Advocacy Day, we have created an online account where you can either offer up your car for carpooling or can see who is offering a ride to Olympia from around the state. Check out the Group Carpool page here. If you need help navigating the page, please contact Honah Thompson at 206.442.9455 x213.

Postcards for advocates unable to attend Advocacy DayFor organizations with staff and advocates unable to attend Advocacy Day. You can print and cut these postcards and have advocates fill them out and sign. Then group them by district, and bring them to Advoacy Day. We'll make sure they get dropped off with each legislative district team.

We advocate for public policy supporting our vision that all Washington residents have the opportunity for safe, healthy, affordable homes in thriving communities.

The reasons for homelessness and housing instability include:

An inadequate supply of homes affordable to low-income households;

Income that is insufficient to afford a home in the private rental market;

Inadequate services for those who need support; and

Unfair barriers to accessing and keeping affordable homes.

In addition to the priorities listed below, we support efforts to raise wages so that jobs pay enough to afford a home. If more jobs paid a living wage, more workers could afford safe, healthy housing. We also support efforts to raise revenue. Washington is $4.5 billion short in what we need to maintain current funding levels and to make required investments in education and mental health over the next two years. To avoid harmful cuts to critical services that help people stay healthy and housed, the state must raise revenue.

Sponsor the Largest Advocacy Day Dedicated to
Affordable Housing and Ending Homelessness

Sponsors make our annual Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day a reality. Last year, financial support from our sponsors provided the resources to bring 605 participants to Olympia to advocate for more opportunities for an affordable home for everyone in Washington!

Advocacy Day information reaches 600+ attendees, legislators from nearly every district in the state, and even more people through a robust social media presence. Sponsorship helps your organization be a leading voice at Advocacy Day.

The Housing Alliance will be utilizing social media to outreach for Advocacy Day before February 17 and to inform folks who aren't able to make it to Olympia about the day's advocacy developments. We are also using social media to educate advocates about the latest updates and information on our state and federal advocacy priorities.

Social Media Day of Action for #HHAD2015Tuesday, February 3, from 12:00am-11:59pmHelp us get the word out about Advocacy Day, encourage people to register, and raise awareness about our State Legislative Advocacy Agenda to create affordable homes and end homelessness. If you're on Twitter or Facebook, you can be a huge help in making both Advocacy Day and our ongoing advocacy efforts a success.

Twitter #Hashtags
On Twitter, people use the hashtag symbol # before a relevant keyword or phrase (no spaces) in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets and help them display more easily in a Twitter search, like: #homelessness. Also, clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets marked with that keyword. For instance, in a Twitter search, you’d see all tweets related to news of homelessness.

Please add this to all your tweets related to Advocacy Day leading up to February 17 and the day-of.

Twitter @Usernames
If your elected official has a Twitter profile, you can tweet advocacy messages to them. You just need to know their username, which always has the @ symbol at the beginning (no spaces).

If you include their username anywhere in the body of the Tweet, then someone at Patty Murray’s office is more than likely to see your message to her and maybe even respond back. And if you have room on your tweet, feel free to include our username in the post. The Washington Low Income Housing Alliance username is @WLIHA.

Twitter and Our Legislative Priorities
Each state and federal item has a unique hashtag that we’ll be using throughout the session and even during Advocacy Day to provide up-to-the-minute legislative updates on Twitter. You should use them too, as you advocate for certain items and learn more about where your legislator stands on the issue.

Stay tuned for our updated Social Media and Advocacy Day Guide. It will have more information about using social media for Advocacy Day and for legislative advocacy beyond February 17. It will also have information about using Facebook.